BBC ON THIS DAY | 1 | 1973: Britain joins the EEC 1973: Britain joins the EEC The United Kingdom has become a fully-fledged member of the European Economic Community. Ireland and Denmark also joined Britain in becoming the newest members of the community, bringing the total number of member states to nine. At midnight last night a Union Jack flag was raised at the EEC's headquarters in Brussels to mark the occasion. Celebrations were held in the city and one of Britain's new European Commissioners, George Thomson, joined revellers in a torch lit procession. Prime Minister Edward Heath is optimistic that Britain's membership of the community will bring prosperity to the country. He said: "It is going to be a gradual development and obviously things are not going to happen overnight. "But from the point of view of our everyday lives we will find there is a great cross-fertilisation of knowledge and information, not only in business but in every other sphere.

"And this will enable us to be more efficient and more competitive in gaining more markets not only in Europe but in the rest of the world." More than 1,000 Britons will relocate to Brussels over the coming months to take up their places as civil servants of the community. Britain will be given four votes within the council, which proposes policies on issues ranging from the environment to public health. Membership applications by the UK to join the EEC were refused in 1963 and 1967 because the French President of the time Charles de Gaulle doubted the UK's political will. It is understood, however, his real fear was that English would suddenly become the common language of the community. The EU: so where did it all go wrong? - Telegraph EU The EU: so where did it all go wrong? It is exactly 40 years since a cautiously enthusiastic Britain joined the Common Market.

Today, few are celebrating When the Conservatives said Yes to Europe: Margaret Thatcher, with William Whitelaw and Peter Kirk, at a referendum conference in June 1975 Photo: Keystone/Getty Images By Andrew Gilligan 7:00AM GMT 30 Dec 2012 In the first week of 1973, the week Britain joined the Common Market, the Government put on a festival of European culture so that the British people could share what their Prime Minister, Edward Heath, called his “heart full of joy” at their country’s shiny new Euro-future. Alas, the “Fanfare for Europe”, though now entirely forgotten, ended up symbolising the ambivalence of the 40-year relationship that has followed. A plan to borrow the Bayeux Tapestry and show it in Westminster Hall was dropped after it was pointed out that the butchery of Saxons by Normans was hardly a suitable theme for the occasion. Instead, the centrepiece was a showcase of European treasures at the V&A – the French refused to lend the Mona Lisa, despite Heath’s personal plea, on the grounds that the British Museum had just refused them a loan of the Rosetta Stone.

As an alternative, with a certain unintended symbolism, they offered Georges de la Tour’s Le Tricheur, a picture of someone cheating at cards. There was also, among other things, an exhibition of European sweets at the Whitechapel Art Gallery; a “Dutch breakfast” and food festival at a London hotel; and co-ordinated demonstrations of “Continental cooking” at Scottish gas and electricity board showrooms. Three hundred anti-EEC demonstrators gathered outside the Royal Opera House, booing and chanting “Sieg Heil” as the Queen, Prince Philip and Heath arrived for a gala performance to celebrate the new dawn. Yet despite all the opposition – and it was serious – what also strikes one now is the strength of support. Every single national newspaper, including the Daily Mail, the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs and Rupert Murdoch’s Sun, was enthusiastic (the Express papers had been opposed, but came round). Most of the business community was fervently pro-EEC. Despite widespread doubts over whether Britain would ever actually join, and despite the opposition of the Labour Party to membership on the terms proposed, the key Commons vote had been won comfortably, 356 to 244.

Sixty-nine Labour rebels voted for entry; only 39 Tory rebels voted to stay out. And within two years, 67 per cent of the British people endorsed the UK’s membership in a referendum. The Labour leadership reversed its position – and one Margaret Thatcher, leader of the opposition, also took a prominent role in the Yes campaign. Related Articles Europe in 2013: economic strangulation and political tension 28 Dec 2012 The No forces were represented by the likes of Tony Benn and the Tory hard Right. In the end, only the Western Isles and Shetland voted against. Both on the political spectrum and geographically, it seemed that only people on the margins were against the EEC. So exactly 40 years on, with a substantial majority of the British people – and even members of the Cabinet – now apparently backing withdrawal, how did Britain’s relationship with Brussels go sour? Part of the difficulty had, of course, been sown decades before 1973, when Britain, still seeing itself as much a world as a European power, chose to stand apart from the Common Market, and its forebear, the European Coal and Steel Community.

So now we were entering a club whose rules were set long before we joined, without our involvement, and not necessarily in our favour. The terms of British membership were particularly poor. At the beginning, Britain – though one of the less prosperous members – was the second-biggest net contributor to the EEC, behind only the far richer Germans, pouring large sums into subsidising French farmers, butter mountains and wine lakes through the Common Agricultural Policy. Not until 1984, 11 years after joining, did Margaret Thatcher secure a permanent two-thirds rebate. “They say it’s their money, and I say it’s mine,” she remarked at the Brussels summit in March of that year. Yet this significant victory involved loss as well as gain for Britain: Thatcher’s grating personal negotiating style permanently damaged relationships between her and the other European leaders. She thought they were hypocritical, attacking her as “not a good European” for opposing a system from which they benefited. They thought she didn’t understand what Europe meant to them: their countries, devastated by war, had been given lasting peace and prosperity. One of the reasons Britain used to be keen on Europe was precisely that.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Continent looked like it was doing a lot better than us: more modern, more prosperous, more socially harmonious. By contrast, throughout the power cuts and strikes of those decades, the UK was haunted by fears of terminal national decline. “For 25 years we’ve been looking for something to get us going again,” said Heath in the 1971 debates over membership. “Now here it is.” Unfortunately, Britain’s entry into the Common Market was swiftly followed by perhaps the worst few years its economy has ever known: the oil crisis, the three-day week and double-digit inflation. The EEC was (largely unfairly) blamed for quite a lot of this. The economic woes underlined another problem that was essentially of Britain’s, not Europe’s, making: the consistent failure of British politicians to be honest with the public about what membership actually involved. As Sir Stephen Wall, a senior Foreign Office diplomat closely involved in British European policy, put it, “ultimately misleading impressions” were given to voters over many years for reasons of “fear” that they would not accept the truth if told it. That is never a sustainable position in any open democracy.

Heath’s 1971 White Paper on entry had promised no “erosion of essential national sovereignty”. This, as many have conceded, was quite untrue: European law did and does override British law, and more and more of it was coming down the tracks from Brussels. In the late 1980s came three pivotal developments that changed the debate dramatically. Until then, the main hostility to Europe had been on the Left, and the main support for it on the Right. On the tenth anniversary of Britain’s accession, in 1983, Thatcher wrote that “the unity of Europe is a goal for which I pledge my government to work”. Labour, meanwhile, fought the election that year on a platform of withdrawal from the EEC. The arrival of Jacques Delors, a French socialist, as president of the European Commission turned that upside down. Delors was deeply ambitious for a more federal Europe, including a single currency. At a famous speech to the TUC in 1988, Delors won over large parts of the British Left with the argument that they could use Europe as a back-door way of achieving the kind of social-democratic state that they had not managed to win via the British electorate.

The Tories, the Right-wing press and the business world were horrified at Delors’ vision of a Europe where common social policies would be followed. As Thatcher put it in her famous Bruges speech, “We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain only to see them reimposed at a European level, with a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels.” But the second big development of the late Eighties — the fall of the Berlin Wall — put rocket-boosters under Delors’ ideas. It made the French much keener on European integration and a single currency, as a way of restraining what they believed would otherwise be a dominant, reunited Germany. The result, in 1991, was the Maastricht treaty, renaming the European Community the “European Union”, and paving the way for the euro and the “social chapter”, which extended Brussels’ powers into a swathe of new areas. The UK won opt-outs from both these things, but there, essentially, was sown the seeds of today’s arguments. It could be said that Britain did not move away from Europe, but that it moved away from us. The British people joined, and were happy to join, a common market.

They did not sign up to a social chapter, a single currency or any moves down the road to a superstate. It shouldn’t be forgotten, of course, that Margaret Thatcher fell in 1990 precisely because many Tories of the time thought her too inflexible over Europe. But in the years that followed, Euroscepticism came utterly to dominate the Conservative Party. The key event in that process was probably Black Wednesday, in 1992, when the markets forced John Major’s government out of the European exchange rate mechanism, under which the pound had shadowed the deutschemark. As Stephen Wall, Major’s private secretary at the time, puts it: “We linked our currency to those of our partners and were forced into what looked like a humiliating defeat. Thereafter, our economy prospered and for most people in Britain the logic of joining the euro looked very counter-intuitive.” Tony Blair came to power with much goodwill from our EU allies after the Thatcher and Major years, and with the clear wish to join the euro. But the fact was that Britain had stayed outside the single currency — launched in 1999, with notes and coins issued from 2002 – and the heavens had not fallen.

The economy continued to boom, and the City kept its place as the premier financial centre of Europe (far more euros are traded in London than in the eurozone itself). That is perhaps the key reason why the country has become more Eurosceptic. Even now, after four years of low-to-no growth, we are a more economically confident nation than we were in the 1970s. For Britain, continental Europe no longer looks like a model to follow. Delors-style regulation has on the whole produced fewer jobs and lower growth than British-style deregulation. Throughout the past decade, as the EU charged on blindly expanding its powers, even “good Europeans” such as Ireland, the Netherlands and even France started rejecting its treaties and constitutions in referendums. Above all, of course, there has been the debacle of the euro, the decisive wrong turn that changed the EU from a broadly successful institution into one that seems to have condemned many of its members to, at best, years of stagnation and misery. So far, the organisation’s leaders seem to have shown little recognition of the inherent structural flaws of the currency, preferring instead to prop up failure.

Across much of the continent, the EU’s fatal lack of real popular consent may be catching up with it. Yet the British impetus for full withdrawal may be dangerous: in the modern world, the very idea of “UK independence”, as promoted by the eponymous Eurosceptic party, is surely an illusion. Even if we left, given the amount of trade we do with the EU, we would still have to follow most of its rules – while no longer having any role in setting them. On that day in 1973 when we joined, an opinion poll asked the British people whether they wanted to see in their country Common Market “customs” such as “regular wine with meals”, “more pavement cafes”, “more shops open on Sunday”, “pubs open all day” and “coffee and a roll for breakfast, not bacon and eggs”. The poll respondents said no to all these dangerous foreign innovations (apart from the wine), but now, of course, along with Polish waitresses in London and British pensioners in Spain, they are standard parts of national life. For all our professed hostility to the EU, we are in some ways far more “European” than we were.

Common Market founded - Mar 25, 1957 - HISTORY.com Common Market founded Publisher A+E Networks On March 25, 1957, France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg sign a treaty in Rome establishing the European Economic Community (EEC), also known as the Common Market. The EEC, which came into operation in January 1958, was a major step in Europe’s movement toward economic and political union. By 1950, it was apparent that centuries of Western European world supremacy was at an end. The national markets of Europe, isolated from each other by archaic trade laws, were no match for the giant market enjoyed by the United States. And looming over Europe from the east was the Soviet Union, whose communist leaders commanded vast territory and economic resources under a single system. Many European leaders also feared the resumption of conflict between traditional European antagonists such as France and Germany, which would only diminish the European economies further. As a means of improving Europe’s economic climate and preventing war, some influential statesman and political theorists suggested economic integration.

The first major step in this direction was taken in 1951, when France and West Germany formed the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), integrating their coal and steel industries. French leaders proposed the organization primarily as a means of monitoring German industry, and West German leaders immediately agreed, to allay fears of German militarization. To supervise the ECSC, several supranational bodies were established, including an executive authority, a council of ministers, an advisory assembly, and a court of justice to settle disputes. Italy and the three nations of the Benelux Economic Union–Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg–soon joined. The groundwork for the EEC was laid. On March 25, 1957, representatives of six European nations signed two treaties in Rome. One created the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) for the common and peaceful development of Europe’s nuclear resources. The other created the EEC. In the Common Market, trade barriers between member nations were gradually eliminated, and common policies regarding transportation, agriculture, and economic relations with nonmember countries were implemented. Eventually, labor and capital were permitted to move freely within the boundaries of the community.

The EEC, the ECSC, and Euratom were served by a single council of ministers, representative assembly, and court of justice. In 1967, the three organizations were fully merged as the European Community (EC). Britain and other European nations initially declined to join the Common Market and established the weaker European Free Trade Association (EFTA) in 1960 as an alternative. By the early 1960s, however, the Common Market nations showed signs of significant economic growth, and Britain changed its mind. Because of its close ties to the United States, however, French President Charles de Gaulle twice vetoed British admission, and Britain did not join the EC until January 1973, when Ireland and Denmark also became EC members. Greece joined in 1981, Portugal and Spain in 1986, and the former East Germany as part of reunified Germany in 1990. In early 1990s, the European Community became the basis for the European Union (EU), which was established in 1993 following ratification of the Maastricht Treaty.

The treaty called for a strengthened European parliament, the creation of a central European bank and common currency, and a common defense policy. In addition to a single European common market, member states would also participate in a larger common market, called the European Economic Area. Austria, Finland, and Sweden became members of the EU in 1995. As of early 2007, there were twenty-seven member states in total, and further growth was expected. More on This Topic What if Britain HADN'T joined the EU? | Daily Mail Online What if Britain HADN'T joined the EU? by CHRISTOPHER BOOKER Last updated at 12:06 06 January 2007 This year marks the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, which launched what was eventually to become the European Union. Whatever our European partners may get up to in commemorating this historic moment, in two months time, it is safe to predict that celebrations here in Britain will be pretty muted. It is unlikely that cheering crowds will be turning out to watch fireworks exploding over the Thames.

Although all our major political parties are totally wedded to our membership of this vast political project, the EU's own polls have consistently shown that the people of Britain are less happy to be part of it than those of any other country in Europe. Perhaps it may be timely therefore to mark this anniversary in our own way, by asking what Britain would be like today if, all those decades ago, our then-political leaders, such as Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath, had never taken us into it in the first place. If we had never entered the 'Common Market' back in 1973, would we now, as the Europhiles like to tell us, be just an impoverished little island standing sadly alone on the edge of Europe, gazing in envy at the success of the great project we were so foolish not to join? Or is it possible that we might in 2007 be living in a Britain significantly richer, happier, freer, more democratic, more selfrespecting and more at ease with itself than it is today?

To imagine how Britain might have fared if we had never been drawn into 'Europe' but remained on the outside as an independent nation, like Norway or Switzerland - the two countries which have persistently refused to join - we must consider both what we are meant to have gained and also what we have lost. And here we immediately come up against a paradox. The most obvious thing we didn't gain from entering the Common Market was the one benefit we were told was our main reason for joining. When Macmillan first decided to take us in back in the early Sixties, it was because Britain was suddenly suffering from a severe loss of self-confidence. As U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson observed in the Forties, Britain had 'lost an empire and not yet found a role'. POLITICALLY and economically we seemed as a nation to be spiralling downwards - and this was just when we could see those original six Common Market countries having made a miraculous recovery from the chaos of World War II. The promise was that, by going into partnership with them, we might learn the secret of their newfound dynamism - and for this we were prepared to turn our back on so much of what over the centuries had given Britain her unique place in the world.

In particular, by throwing in our destiny with Europe, we were expected to turn away from the English- speaking world and abandon our close historic and economic ties with the worldwide Commonwealth, with which we conducted nearly half our overseas trade. The paradox was that when, in the 1980s, we did eventually rediscover the secret of economic success, in that transformation which took place under Mrs Thatcher, this had nothing whatever to do with our membership of what had by then become the 'European Community'. Britain's renaissance, which by the late 1990s had made us again the fourth-largest economy in the world, was entirely home-grown. And by this time that original equation which had drawn us into 'Europe' in the first place had been almost entirely reversed. It was now those Continental countries whose economies were suffocating under all the problems Britain had solved by her own efforts in the 1980s - while most of the countries across the world whose economies have in the past decade been bounding ahead, from America to Australia to India, are part of that Englishspeaking world and Commonwealth on which we had decided to turn our backs.

In hindsight, we can now see that, had we remained outside the European project, as it has become increasingly sunk in economic gloom, we could have remained a natural part of what has become the most dynamic sector of the global economy. In taking that mighty gamble back in the 1960s and 1970s, it has very much looked as though we backed the wrong horse - and, simply in economic terms, we have paid a colossal price for it. Switching the main focus of our trade away from the English- speaking world to Europe, has turned out to be a very one-sided deal indeed. In the past 30 years, so much more do our European partners sell to us than we sell to them that we have run up a staggering deficit on our dealings with the EU, amounting to £300 billion. Without our trade with America and the rest of the world - for which we do not need to take on the deadweight of all those EU directives and regulations estimated to cost us a further £120 billion a year - we should long since have gone bankrupt.

The ultimate proof of how well we might have survived outside the EU is that, even today, both Norway and Switzerland, two of the richest countries in Europe, export a higher percentage of their products to the EU than we do, without having had to join it. BUT THIS is only a small part of what we have given up as the price for belonging to the European Union. When we look at how much else we have lost, we can see just how different Britain might look today if we had never joined. The real sacrifice we have made in submitting to the EU's system of 'supranational government' is that of the right to decide so many of our own laws and policies. If we had never joined we would still have the right to decide our own immigration policy and who should have the right to settle and work in the United Kingdom. If we had never joined, we might still have the most efficient and prosperous agriculture in Europe, as we did before we had to submit to the cockeyed rules of a Common Agricultural Policy drawn up primarily to serve the interests of France.

If we had never joined we might still have the most successful fishing industry in Europe, as we did before we had to hand over our fishing waters, once the richest and most efficiently managed in the world, to a Common Fisheries Policy which has seen the destruction of our fishing fleet and produced an ecological disaster. If we had never joined, we would still have retained the right to choose our own weights and measures. It would not have become a criminal offence to sell a pound of bananas. We would have been free to retain the system we shared with the most dynamic economy in the world, the U.S. If we had never joined we would not be facing the shambles which is now engulfing the way we dispose of our rubbish. We would not be forced to abandon our sensible policy of burying waste to reclaim land (just because some of our Continental partners, such as the Netherlands, have run out of land to do so), supposedly to promote recycling - when in reality this means we must now export millions of tons of rubbish from all those 'recycling' bins to countries such as China (where much of it is buried in landfill).

If we had never joined, we would not be locked into the pie-in-the sky EU policy whereby we are meant within 13 years to be generating 20 per cent of our electricity from renewable sources - which means we are about to cover vast areas of our countryside with wind turbines so unreliable that they will achieve nothing except land us with a massive energy crisis. If we had never joined, our Armed Forces would not be facing collapse through our wasting tens of billions of pounds on grandiose 'European' projects such as the Eurofighter and giant aircraft carriers, supposedly equipping them to play their part in some fantasy EU force of the future - when this means starving them of the much smaller sums needed to equip them for the wars they are actually fighting today. If we had never joined, we would still be able to decide whom we trade with around the world, on our own terms. We would not be forced to accept a crazily protectionist policy, decided in Brussels, which inflicts enormous damage on the economies of scores of other countries, notably in Africa and Asia.

If we had never joined, we would still be able to decide for ourselves on those huge areas of foreign policy which are now dictated on an EU-wide basis (increasingly supported by the EU's own worldwide diplomatic service and embassies, replacing those of member states). But perhaps the greatest prize we might have retained if we had stayed out is that we might have avoided the subtly demoralising effect membership of this vast, ramshackle organisation has had on our democracy and the whole way we are governed. Not the least reason why our Parliament and politicians are these days held in such unprecedentedly low esteem is that so much of the power they once exercised on our behalf has drained away, to faceless armies of technocrats we cannot any longer call to account. The fact that election turnouts have sunk to their lowest-ever level is in part a silent judgment on the way our politicians are no longer responsible for deciding so many of the laws and policies which shape our lives. When we consider the countless ways in which our country's life and institutions have been damaged by our membership of the 'European project', it is hard not to conclude that the decision to join it may have been the greatest political blunder in Britain's history.

Someone who eventually came to this same conclusion was not only rather better-qualified than most of us to pronounce on such matters but was also someone who, back in the 1970s, had been one of Mr Heath's most fervent supporters in backing Britain's entry. DRAWING on the experience of those 11 years when, as Prime Minister, she saw the real nature of the 'European project' at first hand, Mrs Thatcher wrote in her last book that the attempt to create a European superstate would be seen in the future as having been 'the greatest folly of the modern era'. She went on to say that for Britain, 'with her traditional strengths and global destiny', to have become part of it, would come to be seen as having been 'a political error of the first magnitude'. The fact is that, at a time when the political judgment of our leaders had been warped by our political and economic decline, they were led into taking what amounted to a colossal gamble - a gamble we can now see, 30 years later, to have spectacularly failed.

If we had refused to shackle ourselves to that European dream, it is hard to imagine any way in which our country might not today be in a very much better and happier state than it is. We can see the proof of that in the state of the two countries which have more than once resisted that same temptation, both much smaller than Britain. Norway and Switzerland, the countries which stayed out, are not only today the two richest countries in Europe. They have fiercely held on to their national identity and self-respect. Arguably the biggest single problem Britain faces today is that, having made that 'political error of the first magnitude', we must now live with the consequences. So long as our political leaders remain blinkered in refusing to contemplate any alternative, it seems we are going to have to live with them for a long time to come. Ireland in the EU | Ireland - European Commission Ireland in the EU Ireland in the EU Joining the European Community The decision by the vast majority of the Irish people to join what was then the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973 has had an impact on our development as a nation that not even the most optimistic observer of the time could have predicted.

Back then Ireland was regarded by most of the global community as an almost insignificant island, still struggling to find its place in the world more than five decades after gaining independence from the UK. In the years before becoming a member state, political leaders like Seán Lemass and later Jack Lynch , along with senior diplomats and economists, had argued that Ireland’s future lay within Europe. However, Europe wasn’t so sure. Ireland’s agricultural based economy was choked by its dependence on the UK market, and the country suffered from poverty, mass unemployment and emigration. The founding six EEC countries expressed doubts about our economic capacity and our neutrality. Ireland’s policy of protectionism, which saw restrictions imposed on imports, certainly wasn’t very appealing to a European community with free trade at its heart. Leading economists in Ireland had been campaigning for a shift in economic policy and by the early ‘60s many senior politicians were coming around to the idea that it was the only way to tackle the high unemployment and mass emigration that blighted the country. Ireland continued to press for EEC membership but hopes were crushed in 1963 when then French President, General Charles de Gaulle , made it clear that France didn’t want Britain to join the community.

His stand brought an abrupt end to negotiations with all applicant countries and it was to be another decade before Ireland became a member of the EEC. A second application in 1967 had been blocked again by President de Gaulle but in 1969 his successor, George Pompidou , promised not to stand in the way of British and Irish membership. Fresh negotiations began and in 1972 the Treaty of Accession was signed. A referendum held in May 1972 confirmed Ireland’s entry into the European community with 83 per cent of voters supporting membership. Benefits of EU membership to Ireland Irish businesses have unhindered access to a market of over 500 million people An estimated 700,000 jobs have been created in Ireland during the years of membership and trade has increased 90 fold Foreign Direct Investment in to Ireland have increased dramatically from just €16 million in 1972 to more than €30 billion Irish citizens have the right to move, work and reside freely within the territory of other member states Between 1973 and 2014, Ireland received over €72.5 billion from the EU.

During the same time, it contributed approximately €30 billion to the EU budget. Between 1973 and 2014 Irish farmers received €54 billion from the Common Agricultural Policy. Irish views and interests are reflected in the policies of the EU towards the rest of the world. EU membership has helped bring peace and political agreement in Northern Ireland through support and investment in cross-border programmes. The Irish language is an official working language in the EU, which helps to protect the country’s native mother tongue for future generations. The EEC and the Single European Act - UK Parliament The EEC and the Single European Act From the Treaty of Nice to the Treaty of Lisbon The EEC and the Single European Act The Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath, took the UK into the EEC in January 1973 after President de Gaulle of France had blocked UK membership twice in the 1960s. This brought EEC membership to nine. In a referendum in 1975 the UK electorate voted to stay in the EEC under renegotiated terms of entry. The first major Treaty change was the Single European Act, which created an internal market with voting by qualified majority (QMV) rather than unanimity.

The Single Market was established at the end of 1992. It allowed over 280 pieces of legislation to be passed, paving the way for common EU laws based on the principle of mutual recognition among Member States. Britain and the EEC In 1961 Britain applied for membership of the EEC. This was vetoed by French President Charles de Gaulle, who was concerned that British membership would weaken the French voice within Europe. He also feared that close Anglo-American relations would lead to the United States increasing its influence in Europe. Charles de Gaulle also vetoed a second application from Britain in1969. Britain joins the EEC Denmark, Ireland and Britain joined the EEC in 1973, after Charles de Gaulle’s resignation in 1969. Under the Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, there was a UK referendum on continued membership of the EEC in 1975. The electorate voted ‘Yes’ by 67.2% to 32.8% to stay in Europe.

European Monetary System The European Monetary System (EMS) was created in 1979 to try and bring about currency stability throughout Europe by encouraging countries to co-ordinate their monetary policies. It used an Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) to create stable exchange rates in order to improve trade between Member States and thus help the development of the single market. This laid the foundations for a single European currency. Britain was the only EEC Member State not to join the ERM. Budget Rebate Britain, under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, negotiated an EU budget rebate in 1984 after threatening to halt payments to the EU budget. Britain felt it was being unfairly treated as, despite being the third poorest EC Member State, it was set to become the biggest net contributor. This was largely due to farming subsidies, to which Britain was eligible for very little. The Fontainebleau Summit agreed that this was unfair and granted Britain a rebate. Single European Act The Single European Act (SEA) 1987 amended the Treaty of Rome. Its aim was to create a single internal market, which had been proving difficult under the existing Treaties.

The SEA replaced many unanimous decision-making processes with Qualified Majority Voting (QMV), in order to facilitate the adoption of a raft of EU legislation by the end of 1992. Page last updated April 2013 BBC ON THIS DAY | 6 | 1975: UK embraces Europe in referendum About This Site | Text Only 1975: UK embraces Europe in referendum British voters have backed the UK's continued membership of the European Economic Community by a large majority in the country's first nationwide referendum. Just over 67% of voters supported the Labour government's campaign to stay in the EEC, or Common Market, despite several cabinet ministers having come out in favour of British withdrawal. The result was later hailed by Prime Minister Harold Wilson as a "historic decision". For him the victory came after a long and bruising campaign against many in his own party, following Labour's promise to hold a vote in its general election manifesto last October. Faced with the referendum question, "Do you think the UK should stay in the European Community (Common Market)?" Britons voted "Yes" in most of the 68 administrative counties, regions and Northern Ireland.

Only Shetland and the Western Isles voted against the EEC. It puts the uncertainty behind us Home Secretary Roy Jenkins When the result was beyond doubt, the leaders of the pro-Europe camp emerged from private celebrations to thank campaign workers for their efforts. Home Secretary Roy Jenkins said: "It puts the uncertainty behind us. It commits Britain to Europe; it commits us to playing an active, constructive and enthusiastic role in it." The Conservatives were also campaigning to stay in the Common Market. Margaret Thatcher, elected Tory leader last February, said the "Yes" vote would not have happened without the Opposition's support for it. Former Prime Minister Edward Heath said: "I've worked for this for 25 years, I was the prime minister who led Britain into the community and I'm naturally delighted that the referendum is working out as it is." Members of the "No" campaign accepted their defeat and promised to work constructively within the EEC.

Industry Secretary Tony Benn, who had come under criticism from the prime minister during the campaign, said: "When the British people speak everyone, including members of Parliament, should tremble before their decision and that's certainly the spirit with which I accept the result of the referendum." The trade union movement led by the TUC was also opposed to remaining in Europe and had boycotted key advisory positions in Brussels and Luxembourg since Britain joined in 1973. TUC General-Secretary Len Murray said the boycott would be lifted but he remained adamantly opposed to the EEC. "Many of the most imprtant decisions about our future can only be taken here in Britain," he said. HOW FOR 40 YEARS, THE BRITISH PUBLIC HAS BEEN LIED TO . . . | Daily Mail Online HOW FOR 40 YEARS, THE BRITISH PUBLIC HAS BEEN LIED TO . . . Simon Heffer Last updated at 00:00 15 May 2003 EVER since Britain first toyed with the idea of entering what was then called the Common Market, governments of both main parties have consistently lied about the far-reaching implications for this country's future.

When the public has got wind of plots to remove large areas of our country's sovereignty, the usual tactic has been for ministers to pretend that the consequences of signing any treaty or giving more powers to Brussels is of very little import indeed. The Welsh Secretary, Peter Hain, was at it again this week when he talked of the proposed European constitution as being a mere 'tidying up' exercise. Here, SIMON HEFFER examines how, for 40 years, Prime Ministers have used duplicity, obfuscation and downright dishonesty to con - or try to con - the British public. 1962 HAROLD MACMILLAN made the first, failed, attempt to get Britain to join the Common Market. The move was eventually vetoed by the French President, Charles de Gaulle, in 1963. However, even Eurosceptical Cabinet ministers such as Enoch Powell were taken in by Macmillan's protestations that entry was merely about the organisation of a free-trade bloc. In fact, as the Treaty of Rome that founded the Common Market pointed out, the goal was of an 'ever closer union' economically and, more crucially, politically. That last element was kept very quiet.

1970-1972 THE Tories' 1970 General Election manifesto promised that Britain would once again negotiate entry to what was by then known as the European Economic Community. TED HEATH did more than negotiate: he took us in. Having said that Britain would join only 'with the full-hearted consent of the British parliament and people', Heath pressed on with entry even though the enabling Bill passed its second reading by only eight votes in the Commons. The people were never consulted. Heath didn't even tell his Foreign Secretary, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, that signing the Treaty of Brussels to secure our accession committed us one day to joining a single currency - Sir Alec forced Heath to admit this afterwards. Heath also said that the common agricultural and fisheries polices would have no adverse effect on our farmers or fishermen. The consistent dwindling of our fleet since 1973 was a direct result of his policy and contrary to what he had promised. 1975 HAROLD WILSON'S victory at the two 1974 General Elections was partly won on a promise to renegotiate the expensive terms of Britain's membership of the EEC, and to have a referendum on whether to stay in.

Though he painted the concessions he had won from Brussels as a great improvement, they were so inadequate that Mrs Thatcher had to go back to Europe to demand, and win, a far larger rebate. Two pamphlets saying the deal was brilliant were sent to every household at the June 1975 referendum. They also protested that there would be no further sacrifices of sovereignty. Again, such promises were in direct contravention of the Treaty of Rome. 1986 BEFORE the scales fell from MARGARET THATCHER'S eyes about the real agenda in Europe, she argued that the Single European Act (SEA) was essential to found the single market within what by then was called the European Community - the 'Economic' had been dropped because the community was about far more than just economics. In fact, the SEA did away with our veto on various important matters and opened the way for massive regulation from Brussels and greater interference in what had always been domestic matters. More worryingly, the habit started of important regulations being passed into British law by being debated late at night in an empty Commons or being forced through by Orders in Council. 1991 JOHN MAJOR'S Tory government was very nearly brought down by the Maastricht Treaty.

Ironically, he had represented it as a 'great triumph' when he agreed terms in the Dutch town just before Christmas 1991. Mr Major was triumphant because he had secured an opt-out from the Single Currency and the Social Chapter: the truth was that, from then on, constant pressure would be put on Britain to opt in. The Treaty established the European Union, with so-called pillars of common interest such as home affairs, justice and a common security policy. Fears about loss of sovereignty were countered by Major and his ministers on two fronts: first, that signing up would give us more 'influence'; second, that the principle of 'subsidiarity' - the EU only undertaking actions that could not be done better at national or regional levels - would prevent centralisation. In fact, the EU has subsequently sought to expand its areas of competence, there have been few if any signs of more British influence whatsoever and the single currency is an ever-present threat. 1997 LUCKILY for TONY BLAIR, the Treaty of Amsterdam came along just at the time when he was enjoying New Labour's honeymoon period and basking in unprecedented public adulation.

There was little appetite for an argument about the Treaty, or interest in its contents. This was fortunate for Mr Blair because the Amsterdam Treaty followed on from Maastricht in expanding the 'competences' of the EU, poaching yet more areas of sovereignty from member states. A treaty that was said to be merely helping facilitate the smooth running of the EU in fact paved the way for a superstate. It confirmed citizenship of the union and gave the EU the right to intervene in a range of matters concerning the fight against crime, social and employment policy, environmental and public health policies. And it enabled the EU to operate a formal - and aggressive - common foreign and security policy. Robin Cook boasted: 'We are confident that we can emerge from Amsterdam with a text that will retain the national veto over issues of common foreign and security policy'. They did, but only temporarily. 2000 THE Treaty of Nice was represented by the Government as a way of enabling the enlargement of the EU from 15 to 25 members. It was all about 'improving' institutions. In fact, it was about giving an enormous amount of additional power to Brussels.

It was all about ensuring 'enhanced co-operation', but to do this it removed the veto that member states had over anything that might be defined as resisting 'enhanced co-operation'. It reduced from two to one the number of British commissioners, enhanced the powers of the unelected President of the EU and paved the way towards Cabinet style government in the EU. Qualified majority voting was extended in such important areas as appointing members of the EU's Court of Auditors, and the member states lost their vetoes in 39 areas. As a result, the Treaty represented a further dilution of British 'influence' and a further surrender of sovereignty. 2003 OF ALL the inexactitudes uttered over the years, none - except perhaps those of Ted Heath - can match the whopper perpetrated by PETER HAIN this week. The proposed European constitution would give Brussels control over our foreign, defence and security policies, as well as allowing it to intervene in almost every area of governmental activity. In fact, it is proposed that British legislators would be able to consider only those matters allowed by Brussels. It would enable centralisation of the taxation system, and seems to imply that entering the euro is a necessary part of signing up to the new constitution.

Mr Hain has said there will be no referendum on the issue because it is merely a 'tidying-up' exercise. In other words, the British people are not to be consulted on the most fundamental alteration of their sovereignty since the Norman Conquest.

Question: In what year did Britain join The Common Market
Answer: 1973